Details

General

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

This stem has two meanings:

• 'face' of a person. This meaning is found in all dictionaries.
• 'edge' of a sharp tool, e.g. a knife. This meaning is given in older dictionaries [10, 13], but not in newer ones such as Oqaatsit [16].

According to the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary [18], the reconstructed historical form of this stem is {kəɣinaʀ}, so the first vowel is actually /ə/, which then has taken the sound [i], since it is followed by a consonant /ɣ/. However, this consonant then later appears to have dropped, thus leaving the /ə/ frozen with the sound [i]. For this reason, we record the form here as /kiinaq/, since /kəinaq/ would not yield the correct form by the sound rules. Another possibility would be to record it as /kəjinaq/, by assuming /ɣ/ were realised as /j/, which then would be unwritten in the new orthography. However, this seems needlessly complicated, so we prefer the simpler solution /kiinaq/ here.

Inflection sandhi:

This stem has non-standard gemination of /n/ to /nn/. Note also the special, archaic absolutive 4sg/sg form, kiinni, also triggering gemination.

Inflection

Declension pattern:

Meanings and examples